YISHAYE (ISAIAH) TAUB

YISHAYE (ISAIAH) TAUB (b. February 18, 1904)

            He was born in Loyvitsh (Lovich), Poland.  He studied in religious primary school, yeshiva, and a teachers’ course run by Tsisho (Central Jewish School Organization) in Warsaw.  In 1927 he graduated from the Warsaw teachers’ seminary at the Institut für Judaistik in Warsaw.  Over the years 1927-1939, he worked as a teacher in Hebrew schools in Kutne (Kutno) and Ripin (Rypin).  At the start of WWII (1939), he was an officer in the Polish army and fell into German captivity.  In early 1945 he was in Italy, working with the Jewish Brigade.  He was the manager of a public school in Tel Aviv (1945-1953), and from 1953 the administrator of a Hebrew school in Melbourne, Australia.  He began writing in Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw (1924), and later published various language research work in: Filologishe shriftn (Philological writings) (Vilna) 3 (1929), 143-52; Sh. Lehman’s Arkhiv far folklor un etnografye (Archive for folklore and ethnography) (Warsaw, 1933); Yidish far ale (Yiddish for everyone) (Warsaw, 1938-1939); and other serials.  He was a regular contributor to Landkentnish (Geography) in Warsaw (1933-1936)—e.g., “Yidish in onheyb 19tn yorkundert” (Yiddish in the early nineteenth century), “Hayntike idyomen” (Contemporary idioms), and “Yidishe antologyes” (Yiddish anthologies).  After WWII, he was a contributor to the Yiddish-Hebrew journal Baderekh (On the road) in Italy.  He served as the Tel Aviv correspondent, 1945-1946, for the Melbourne-based Di yidishe post (The Jewish mail) and Oysralyer yidishe nayes (Australian Jewish news).  He translated into Polish and reworked for school children chapters from Sholem-Aleykhem’s Funem yarid (From the fair) (Warsaw, 1938), 64 pp.

Khayim Leyb Fuks